THE 



Track of the NorseiTian 



A MONOGRAPH 



BY 



jo^. ^^of^Y mr. 



OF 



Wood's Hon 



MASS. 



■-o-^=t£g<M-f-o-- 



BOSTON : 
C. C. ROBERTS, PRINTER, 21 BRATTLE STREET, 

1876. 






^ 






THE 



Track of the Norseman, 



It is now well established that in the tenth century 
the Norsemen visited this countr}^, and coasting down 
from Greenland, passed along Cape Cod, through Vine- 
yard Sound to Narragansett Bay, where it is believed 
they settled. In the neighborhood of Assonet and Digh- 
ton, inscriptions upon the rocks have been found and 
traditions exist that there were others which have' been 
destroyed. The name of Mount Hope is supposed to 
have been given to the Indians by them, and it is a 
little curious that those antiquaries who have tried to 
identify the names in Narragansett Bay with the Norse- 
men did not look elsewhere on their route. 

The Rev. Isaac Taylor, the author of a work pub- 
lished by Macmillan & Co. of London, entitled "Words 
and Places," dilates upon the tenacity with which the 
names of places adhere to them, "throwing light upon 
history when other records are in doubt." He shows 
the progress and extent of the Celtic, Norwegian 
and Saxon migration over Europe, by the names and ter- 
minals which still exist over that continent and even on 
the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and says, " the 
knowledge of the history and migrations of such tribes 
must be recovered from the study of the names of the 
places they once inhabited, but which now know them 



4 THE TRACK OF THE NOBSEMAN. 

no more, from the names of the hills which they for- 
tified, of the rivers by which they dwelt, of the distant 
mountains upon which they gazed." He sa3'S, "in the 
Shetlands, every local name without exception is Nor- 
wegian. The names of the farms end in seter 

or ster, and the hills are called hoy and 

holl." and yet he also says, "the name of 

Greenland is the only one left to remind us of the 
Scandinavian settlements which were made in America 
in the tenth century." Would the author have made 
this exception to his axiom as to the durability of 
names, had he remembered that the Norsemen called 
the southern coast of Massachusetts Vineland, and 
then had seen that we still have "Martins" or "Mar- 
tha's Vineyard?" Had he sighted Cape Cod and 
entered Vine3'ard Sound as the Norsemen did, in 
rounding Monomo}^ Point, the south-east extremity of 
the cape, he would have seen on his right a high 
sand}' hill, on or near which is the light-house, over- 
looking a land locked anchorage on the inside called 
Powder Hole ; — a score or more of miles further along, 
across the sound on his left he would have seen the hills 
now called Oak Bluffs and the Highlands, and under 
their lee a deep bay and roadstead long known as 
Holmes' Hole, unfortunately changed to Vineyard 
Haven ; — crossing over to the main-land again, a little 
further west, he would have come to the bold but 
prettily rounded hills forming the southwestern extremity 
of the cape, and behind them, the sheltered and 
picturesque harbor of Wood's Hole. 

Proceeding thence torwards Narragansett Ba}', along 
the south coast of Naushon, prominent hills on the 
West end of that Island slope down to a roadstead 
for small craft, and a passage through to Buzzard's 



THE TBACK OF THE NORSEMAN. 5 

Ba}', called Robinson's Hole : — the next island is 
Pasque, and between its high hills and those of 
Nashawena. is a passage called Quick's Hole. Now these 
several localities are unlike each other except that 
all have hills in their vicinity, serving as distinguishing- 
land marks. And wh}^ is not the w^ord Hole as ap- 
plied to them, a corruption of the Norwegian word 
Holl, meaning hill? The descriptive term Hole is 
not applicable to an}^ of them, but the word Holl is, to 
the adjacent hills, while there is little else in common 
between them. The localities now called Quick's and 
Robinson's Hole are passages between Elizabeth Islands ; 
Wood's Hole is a passage and a harbor ; Holmes' Hole 
now known as Vineyard Haven, is a deep bay or an- 
chorage ; and Powder Hole was formerl}- a capacious 
roadstead, now nearly filled with sand. 

It may seem to militate with the theory advanced, 
that south of Powder Hole or Monomoy Point, is a lo- 
calit}' called on the chart Butler's Hole, which lies in the 
course from Handkerchief Shoal to Pollock Rip, where 
there is now not only no hill, but no land. But it is 
to be considered that almost within the memor3' of man 
there was land in that vicinity, which has been washed 
away by the same strong and eccentric current that has 
nearly filled up Powder Hole harbor and made it a 
sand-flat, and which still casts up on the shore large 
roots and remains of trees. With this in mind it is not 
wild to suppose that Butler's Hole marks a spot where 
once was an island with a prominent hill, which the 
sea kings called a Holl, and which has succumbed to 
the powerful abrasion of the tides which have moved 
Pollock Rip many 3'ards to the eastward, and which every 
3'ear make and unmake shoals in the vicinity of Nan- 
tucket and Cape Cod. 



6 THE TBACK OF THE NOB SE MAN. 

It would seem a matter of course that the Norse- 
meu after their loug and perhaps rough vo3'ages, when 
once arrived in the sheltered waters and harbors of 
Vine3'ard Sound should have become familiar with them 
and should have lingered there to recruit and refit, 
before proceeding westward ; or on their return, to 
have waited there to gather up resources before ventur- 
ing out on the open ocean. Indeed it is recorded in 
their sagas, that the}' brought off boat loads of grapes 
from those pleasant shores. What more probable than 
that they cultivated friendly relations with the natives, 
and in coming to an understanding with them on sub- 
jects in common, should have told them the Norwegian 
terms for the hills and headlands of their coast, and 
that the Indians in the paucitj^ of their own language, 
should have adopted the appellative Holl which the}^ 
were told signified hill, so important as a landmark 
to these wandering sea-kings ! Why may not the 
Norseman have called them so, until the natives 
adopted the same title, and handed it down to the 
English explorers under Bartholomew Gosnold who 
gave their own patronymics to those several Holls, 
or Holes as now called? The statement of "the oldest 
inhabitant" of Wood's Hole, on being asked where 
the word Hole came from, is, that he "always un- 
derstood that it came from the Indians." 

There being no harbor on the shores of Martha's 
Vineyard island west of Holmes' Hole, the voyagers 
would naturally follow the north shore of the Sound 
and become familiar with the Elizabeth Islands, and 
be more likely to give names to the localities on 
that side than on the other. Between Wood's Hole 
and Holmes' Hole the Sound is narrowest, and they 
would be apt -to frequent either harbor as the winds 



THE TBACK OF THE NORSEMAN. 7 

and tide might make it safe or convenient for tliem. 
It seems to confirm the views here advanced that 
in no other part of this Continent or of the world, 
where the English have settled, is to be commonl}- 
found the local name of Hole, and jet here in a 
distance of sixty miles, the thoroughfare of these bold 
navigators, there are no less ihan five such, still extant. 
How can it be explained except because it is " the 
track of the Norsemen?" It is not natural or proba- 
ble, with their imperfect means of navigation, that 
they should have passed from Greenland to Narragan- 
sett Bay, leaving distinct traces in each, and yet to 
have ignored the whole intervening space, and not to 
have lingered awhile on the shores where they found 
grapes by the boat load, and which must have been 
as fair and pleasant in those days as they are now. 
It is to be hoped that at least, our people will not be in 
haste to wipe out the local names of Vineyard Sound, 
when it is so likely that they are the oldest on the Con. 
tinent and give to Massachusetts a priority of discovery 
and settlement over her sister States. Only let us 
correct the spelling, and give proper significance to 
them by calling the places now named Hole by the 
appropriate title of Holl. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 563 738 1 



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